Joining us right now in studio, Michael Rubin. Of course, you're not the host of Fanatics Fest. You're like the owner of it. How would you describe your role?
I am the assistant of the assistant of the assistant. I think right now I'm the lowest man on the totem pole for sure.
Bigger and better this year. I'm hearing it's going to be insane.
I mean, I think we're close to 100,000 tickets sold now. Look, New York sports fans are the best and this has really become a global thing. There's people flying in from around the world for Fanatics Fest.
I went there last night to see it. It's insane. It's absolutely insane.
I mean, remember last year was the first time we ever did it. We had you in last year. We were both there. It was awesome. And for the first time we had the NFL, the NBA, NHL, baseball, WWE, and UFC. In addition to those six sports coming back, we've added F1, FIFA, Premier League, USA, any golf, Nike, and a big golf activation with Dick's Sporting Goods.
Okay, there you go. Absolutely. So, you said 100,000 tickets now. What was it last year? How many people? You remember?
We had 70,000 people last year. Yeah, we're going to have more than 100, I think meaningfully more than 100,000 people. And probably the most exciting thing is there's just so much to do for every sports fan. Like I mean you guys told me you were there for the first time ever, right? And it's going to be 10 times better than it was last year because one, we have an entire building now. Two, we have so many more sports there. And three, just think about the big stars that come. Like I was just, you know, going through LeBron's schedule with somebody like you have LeBron James. He wasn't there last year, right? He's going to bring the shot there. KD's coming back, but you've got LeBron, Wemby, KAT, James Harden, all coming this year. We changed it from August till June. So, you could have all the active NFL guys. You've got CJ Stroud, Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Bryce Young, Russell Wilson, Joe Burrow. You've got I mean there's 50, you know, NFL stars there and you even have baseball guys in season like Carlos Mendoza is going to be there. He's managing a series in Philadelphia. He's going for this. Jazz Chisholm is going to be there. Even the local baseball guys are going to be there. And it's 300 athletes, celebrities, artists. Then you got guys that drive culture like Jay-Z and Travis Scott. You got Kevin Hart doing Cold as Balls live from there. I can't wait to see Kevin's interviewing Wemby. Okay, there's a slight size difference. Wemby's 7'6". Kevin's I think 5'6". So I'm looking forward to that. That's going to be fun. And we have so many surprises in store for people. Like last year we did some big stunts. I don't know if you guys remember we had Libby Dunn came out dressed as her boyfriend Paul Skenes. We had Alex Earl came dressed as her boyfriend. We had Gronk dress up as Brady. Gronk in full Patriots uniforms. But this year like we have 10 times the amount of stunts coming. So, it'd be hard to not see crazy stunts in front of you.
So, I don't want to assume that everybody knows, you know, the motivation behind this. Like, it's kind of like a Comic-Con only a sports con. A very similar theme, but bigger.
Well, we went to Comic-Con and said, 'Why did they not have this for sports?' We basically copied it, took the person who ran it, they came to work for us, and so we launched, you know, we originally coined it Sports Con and, you know, Sporticon, and then we changed the name to Fanatics Fest before we obviously ever launched. But yeah, look, it's crazy that sports fans never had a giant sports festival. But if you think about it, who else could pull it together? Because you need to have a relationship with all the sports properties and all the athletes. And I think we're uniquely positioned to do that. I don't think any other company in sports has such a broad range of deep relationships with the sports and with the athletes to be able to do this. And look, we invested 15 million bucks in doing this last year. We lost 15 million bucks to do it.
No, no, we probably had $30 million in expenses and $15 million in revenue. But for us, this is just an investment in the fan. I mean, look, I think the biggest thing we could do wrong as a company is become a big company, not a beloved company. And we want to be beloved. And so, this is something like you guys saw it, right? You hosted your show. I love the energy.
Yeah. We're going to be out there again looking forward. The energy in the building was great.
You guys should be hosting tomorrow. Just talking about the building, what's going on, just to like move the show over there tomorrow and just show people what's going on. It's insane.
I mean, yeah. I mean, we'll do it. Logistically, we're only on a couple hours, but I'll do it. Sure.
But it's so fun. Like, I went there yesterday. I was excited just like to see all the things that are getting built. I mean, to see what Nike's building, to see what, you know, F1's building, to see what FIFA is building. It's so fun. And then, you know, we have the I'm assuming you guys know about the Fanatics Games.
Yes. I was just going to get to that now. That's new. That was not the case last year.
Yeah. That was like an idea that came a month ago. People thought we were nuts.
